I do think that Ryan Perez could have looked up Felicia Day on Wikipedia before getting fired over questioning her contribution to the industry. I also do think that he shouldn't have put sexist remarks in his Twitter bio. Nevertheless I feel that over all the outcry some core point of his question has been lost: Would Felicia Day be as famous as she is if she wasn't that good-looking? To what degree is her fame based on creative contribution as script writer and producer to the industry, and to what degree is it based on male teenagers' hormones going wild when seeing her in the sexy Do You Want to Date my Avatar? music video?

I'm not a huge fan of hers, but she's a solidly-educated, reasonably-talented entertainer. Her 'awkward geek girl' schtick is gentle, likeable satire, leveraging personality more than looks.

I'm pretty sure Day's success would be nearly undiminished if she had not done the video and relied on The Guild, Dr Horrible, etc. It's also not clear to me why she needs to defend her relevance to the industry on the basis of technical contributions as opposed to cultural commentary.

On the other hand, I do know I would never have heard of Ryan Perez if he had not made a cheap bid for notoriety at her expense.

So, in the future, what people should keep in mind is: even if you know nothing else about Felicia Day (and, frankly, there's not much to know), you should know that she has an extremely large collection of white knights who will sally forth if you dare to make any negative comment whatsoever about her.

I fail to see the relevance of your White Knight comment Carson63000. I think most people would have defended Will Wheaton (to name a male counterpart of Felicia Day as geek icon) as vehemently if not more.

Is your thought process defending a woman in any situation equals White Knight?

Windle - I find it hard to imagine a Universe where Felicia needed any protection from the drunken ramblings of a random. I suspect this is why it would be reasonable to label her defenders 'white knights'.

Carson does seem to have a rather negative ("and, frankly, there's not much to know") view of a true geek who has much respect from her peers though which should tell you something about her.

I think the problem here is that he was gratuitously rude. "@feliciaday, could you be considered nothing more than a glorified booth babe?" is plain and simple rude.

Now there may be a case sometimes in journalism for being rude but it's compounded by being sexist. If you want to be rude about someone then choose something better to be rude about than how they were born, that someone was born female.

Is there an element of truth? Possibly. I first encountered Ms Day's work through The Guild, through her acting. It's a lot easier for good looking people to progress as actors. But let's move it across to look at men. Does Tom Cruise or Daniel Craig offer any creativity in their work beyond being glorified male models? Of course they do.

Now possibly his point is that she's a bad actress. The popularity of her work suggests most people don't agree.

Perhaps his point is that metagame phenomena such as youtube videos aren't really "gaming". That's pretty much a dead viewpoint, Raph dispelled narrow views of gaming with his Story about a Tree ten years ago.

Basically this guy was highly unprofessional, pitted himself in a popularity contest against one of the most popular people in gaming and jeopardised the reputation of his company. Of course they sacked him, he deserved it. If you can't type words without making an idiot of yourself and your company you shouldn't expect to earn a living by writing.

Ulv: - Would you say will wheaton would need protection from the fans if he was harrassed? - Do you think for a moment if he was harrassed that we wouldn't have droves of fans throwing down on twitter to defend him?- Would those fans then be White Knights?

"White knighting" does mean male defenders rushing to the defense of a female - with a strong connotation of said female not actually needing to be defended. Which, in this case, she surely did not.

And no, I don't believe that you would get even remotely the same reaction if you slagged off Will Wheaton as this guy did for slagging off Felicia Day. No doubt a lot of his fans would think you were an asshole, and would say so, but I really don't think the tenor of the uproar would be very similar at all.

Ulv, you're right that I have a rather negative view. Frankly I never saw anything remotely entertaining in The Guild. Generally I ignore it the way I ignore all comedy I don't find funny, but I've always found it a bit distasteful and creepy the way a certain segment of the gaming community fawns over Felicia Day.

I personally root for Ryan Bard. Not because I share his opinion, but because it's a sad day when someone loses their job over voicing a mild opinion in the form of a set of questions to a public Twitter account. My respect for Belmont also went down a notch. Not a fan of rats.

Windle, I would suggest that neither of them 'need' the protection provided by their fans.

Wheaton would have a section of his fan-base get all out of shape about it as would anyone with a following. As would Tom Cruise or Kermit the Frog.

These un-asked for heroes would be, imo, White Knights - charging in to the frey and flouncing out victorious even though nobody asked or needed them to.

Carson - some fans will fawn over the object of their fandom. It's just people being people and not particularly creepy. Well, some fans may elevate it to creepy but that's what court issued restraining orders are for right?

If Johnny Depp wasn't sexy would he be successful? We don't ask those questions, but the intersection of women's success and their appearance somehow always gets linked. That's part of male privilege. It's an assumption that if a woman achieves anything, there has to be some special reason to excuse that success. (And if women question whether a man's success is due to male privilege, we're derided as unhinged feminazis etc.)

She's one of the pioneers in professional web production, not only for creating The Guild, but for running what's now an entire geek "channel" on youtube. And if people haven't noticed, the gaming world isn't particularly friendly to women if they do step out of the front of the booth and sit down in front of a computer and actually game.

And if being conventionally attractive was the issue, wouldn't we be having this discussion about Amy Okuda?

Ulv, Carson63000:I think we disagree on the meaning of being an internet White Knight. As far as I've seen it used, it implies a man going to the (virtual) aid of a woman just because of the fact that she is a woman.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=white%20knight

My point in all this was that we would get a similar reaction if the person being attacked was a man, provided he had a big enough fanbase.

The internet is funny, I missed the initial stir and caught the follow-up on a reddit thread yesterday. Now this thread. There's basically a large discussion over Felicia Day and White Knighting, which I never saw, but I have seen an incredible amount of White Knighting for a fourth-rate gaming 'journalist'.

Felicia Day is a performer and producer. She's not just part of the Guild because she's cute; the whole thing is *her creation*; she assembled the actors and wrote the thing. The web page also credits The Guild for inspiring Dr. Horrible, which I would also say is a pretty significant contribution to geek culture in itself, no?

I don't really get why this is even a question. Even if she didn't produce and write The Guild herself, why is being decent actress in significant geek stuff entertainment an accomplishment in its own right, and why is it necessary to trivialize that by calling her a booth babe? Is Neil Patrick Harris also a booth babe?

I think that the contribution of her looks is small. I happen to have a red hair fetish and so I have a thing for Day but from an objective standpoint she simply isn't remarkably attractive. She is, however, moderately attractive and also has amazing presentation and moxie. People in movies are made up and set to lighting and such to make them look their best and Day is great at acting sexy when she wants to.

A huge component of attraction is wrapped up in how we act and how we prepare ourselves. Day leverages this to drive the sex drives of a million geeks off the charts. So yes, if she was extremely unattractive it would have made her rise to fame more challenging but I think by and large she has done what she has done by skill and tenacity. Just like anyone else though having good looks helps. Top lawyers get to the top of their professions more easily if they are good looking - obviously this is going to be true for actresses and actors.

Asking if a writer/actress would be as popular if she wasn't as good looking is like asking if John Carmack would be as popular if he wasn't a good programmer. We needn't speculate about either of these things. Being good at math makes you more likely to be a great game engine programmer. Being pretty makes you more likely to succeed in Hollywood. I see nothing wrong with this.

Well, yes, if she were ugly or even average looking she would not be as successful. Actually the odds are low she would even have any kind of acting career at all. Men (Rob Schneider pops to mind) can get away with being a bit average. Women not so much. This is why even when the movie is about a plain girl, they just tie some gorgeous woman's hair back and give her nerd glasses. It's pretty hard to find anyone with a career in TV or commercials that isn't attractive.

That's just a fact of life for everyone, but it is especially true for actors and musicians. Remarking on that is like pointing out that they call football soccer in the US. And even if the people who think that is horribly unfair do it to.

That said, it's weird that he got fired for relatively tame comments that were more irrelevant than anything. She's an actress with a web series about video games; what is she supposed to be doing, developing the next gen MMO? The internet rage machine was in full operation on this guy. My guess is he that he will either get rehired once the rage machine finds its next tempest, or he was pretty close to getting canned anyway.

Would Stephen Hawking be so famous if he wasn't so smart? Isn't it fair to say he's trading on his intellect? This is clearly unfair: he didn't EARN that brain. He was born with it. Same with whats-her-name's appearance. Yes, of course she has used her appearance to good effect in her career. So have you.

All human beings trade on their appearance. Tobold, you wouldn't have gotten the job you have if you were 50% uglier. You sexy minx. (Google it! Appearance correlates with pay, regardless of gender.)

So it's fine to ask this question to highlight how big a role charisma has in our daily lives. It matters a lot, and it's not fair, and it sure sucks if you're ugly.

But the way you ask the question, it seems you would rather attack someone who has had more success than you, and that comes across as petty.

Would Stephen Hawking be so famous if he wasn't so smart? Isn't it fair to say he's trading on his intellect? This is clearly unfair: he didn't EARN that brain. He was born with it. Same with whats-her-name's appearance. Yes, of course she has used her appearance to good effect in her career. So have you.

All human beings trade on their appearance. Tobold, you wouldn't have gotten the job you have if you were 50% uglier. You sexy minx. (Google it! Appearance correlates with pay, regardless of gender.)

So it's fine to ask this question to highlight how big a role charisma has in our daily lives. It matters a lot, and it's not fair, and it sure sucks if you're ugly.

But the way you ask the question, it seems you would rather attack someone who has had more success than you, and that comes across as petty.

you would rather attack someone who has had more success than you, and that comes across as petty

I find it fascinating how people who don't have anything intelligent to say always feel the need to use personal attacks instead. Yeah, you found me out, I'm so jealous of not having a sexy music video of myself on YouTube.

To what degree is her fame based on creative contribution as script writer and producer to the industry, and to what degree is it based on male teenagers' hormones going wild?

As far as comparative analysis problems go, this one is fairly simple.

We have factors A and B (Good Looks and Creative Work) that contribute to result X (Internet Fame). We wish to determine the relative impact that A and B have on X. In order to do that, we should examine samples with isolated factors and measure their respective Xa/Xb value.

Therefore, let's take two hypothetical scenarios. In the first, Ms. Day works as a proverbial "booth babe" for conventions and exhibitions, relying entirely on her looks. In the second, she is still the creator of The Guild and a participant in other projects, but her face is never visible (she appears as a generic WoW human female model instead). In which scenario would she achieve greater fame?

"Yeah, you found me out, I'm so jealous of not having a sexy music video of myself on YouTube."

I'd watch it...

As to Felicia Day, I came to know her by watching her stuff. The internet is practically overflowing with pretty women (many of them in much less clothing). However few of them are as smart or funny as Mrs. Day.

As a side note, I've met her and I will say she is quite nice as a person. Very appreciative of her fans and seems to realize how fragile the fame bubble is. Also without her we may never have seen Legend of Neil which the thought of makes me one sad panda.

What a moron, The Guild is on fucking Netflix. Felicia Day is mainstream, not even just part of Gamer Subculture. The guy is an ignorant fool, childish, and hopefully learned a lesson from this that many of us learned as teenagers.

Is this a case of someone expressing their opinion, someone who might have some kind of credibility in the gaming industry, or someone who anyone can ignore and not give an ounce of credence to their opinion?

I'm really surprized that many commentors here, those who will defend to the n'th degree their right to publish and say anything they want on their own blogs/tweets, would support the notion that this guy should have been fired for making the statements he did.

The entire internet needs to have its plexi-glass belly button cleaned. Maybe then those involved can see things a little more clearly.

If Felica Day wasn't that good looking then she'd be a talented and funny woman who received no attention whatsoever from the largely mysoginistic gaming community of jackasses. Something is really wrong with gaming culture these days....the only spark of optimism I can feel is that there's generally a decent outcry against the obvious mysoginy when it rears its ugly head.

If Felica Day wasn't that good looking then she'd be a talented and funny woman who received no attention whatsoever from the largely mysoginistic gaming community of jackasses. Something is really wrong with gaming culture these days....the only spark of optimism I can feel is that there's generally a decent outcry against the obvious mysoginy when it rears its ugly head.